BP Plc’s “controlled burns” in the
Gulf of Mexico are killing endangered sea turtles trapped inside
the booms the company uses to collect spilled oil, wildlife
activists said in a lawsuit.

London-based BP, which is struggling to control the largest
spill in U.S. history, should be forced to stop the burns or
ensure no turtles are caught inside the floating “corrals”
before the oil is ignited, the environmentalists said in the
suit. BP’s killing of the turtles constitutes an illegal
“taking” of an endangered species under environmental laws,
they claim.

The plaintiffs seek a temporary order restraining BP from
any activities in the Gulf of Mexico that could risk killing or
injuring endangered and threatened sea turtles, William Eubanks
and Jason Burge, lawyers for the environmentalists, said in
papers filed in New Orleans federal court yesterday.

The case was reassigned yesterday to U.S. District Judge
Carl Barbier, who set a hearing on the request for tomorrow.
Barbier already presides over 35 lawsuits claiming spill-related
damages by fishing industry workers, property owners, tourism
businesses and other environmental groups.

BP spokesman Tony Odone said the company had no comment on
pending litigation.

The case is Animal Welfare Institute v. BP America Inc.,
2:10-cv-01866, U.S. District Courts, Southern District of
Louisiana (New Orleans).

For more, click here.

Apple Sued Over New IPhone Reception Problems by Consumers

Apple Inc. was sued over reception problems with its new
iPhone 4 by consumers who accused the company of unfair business
practices and false and misleading advertising.

A New Jersey resident and a Massachusetts resident who had
bought the new mobile phone filed separate complaints yesterday
in federal court in San Francisco, each seeking to represent
other iPhone buyers in a class action, or group, lawsuit.

The June 24 introduction of the iPhone 4 was marred by
criticism that signal strength diminishes when users cover the
bottom left corner of the phone with their palm. The iPhone,
which debuted in 2007, has become Apple’s top-selling product
even after users reported glitches and dropped calls with
previous versions of the device.

“Apple’s sale of the iPhone with this unannounced defect,
assuming Apple’s prior knowledge of the defect, constitutes
misrepresentation and fraud,” Christopher Dydyk of Cambridge,
Massachusetts, said in his complaint. “In omitting to disclose
the defect in the iPhone 4, Apple perpetrated a massive fraud
upon hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting customers.”

Natalie Harrison, a spokeswoman for Cupertino, California,
based Apple, didn’t immediately return a call to her office or
respond to an e-mailed request for comment after regular
business hours.

The cases are Alan Benvenisty v. Apple, 10-2885, and
Christopher Dydyk v. Apple, 10-2897, U.S. District Court,
Northern District of California (San Francisco).

Highland Capital, the investment firm founded by James
Dondero and Mark Okada, and two affiliates “fraudulently
induced” UBS to restructure the CDO in 2008, the Zurich-based
bank alleged in papers filed in New York State Supreme Court in
Manhattan.

The new lawsuit follows a complaint filed by UBS on Feb.
24, 2009. Highland Capital won dismissal in February of this
year of one of three claims in the 2009 lawsuit. UBS separately
filed an amended complaint in that case on June 28, court
records show.

An appeals court in Manhattan reversed an October ruling by
New York State Supreme Court Justice Bernard Fried, who had
refused to dismiss a claim that Highland Capital had a duty to
indemnify UBS for losses incurred when the transaction failed to
occur before the agreements terminated.

“We are disappointed that UBS has chosen to refile its
baseless lawsuit against Highland Capital and the funds given
the court’s previous dismissal of the suit’s central claim,”
Nina Devlin, an outside spokeswoman for Highland Capital with
Edelman in New York, said in an e-mailed statement.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed a lawsuit
against Bank of America Corp.’s Countrywide unit claiming the
company discriminated against black and Latino borrowers.

The mortgage lender steered minority borrowers into risky
subprime mortgages more than it did white borrowers who were
similarly situated, Madigan said June 29 in a statement.
Minority borrowers also paid more than other borrowers for all
Countrywide mortgages, including prime loans, Madigan said.

“Countrywide’s illegal discriminatory lending practices
destroyed the wealth and dreams of thousands of African American
and Latino homeowners,” Madigan said in the statement. “Bank
of America needs to be held accountable by taking financial
responsibility for cleaning up the devastation of the predatory
company that it chose to take over.”

Shirley Norton, a spokeswoman for Bank of America, didn’t
immediately return an e-mail or a call to her office after
regular business hours.

The case is the People of the State of Illinois v.
Countrywide, 10CH27929, Circuit Court of Cook County, Chancery
Division.

Mylan and Sandoz are seeking Food and Drug Administration
approval to sell lower-cost copies of Pfizer’s Detrol LA. Pfizer
said the copies would infringe two patents on formulas used to
make the drug and wants to block approval until both patents
expire, according to separate complaints filed in federal court
in Newark, New Jersey, on June 24.

Detrol LA is the extended-release version of Detrol, known
chemically as tolterodine tartrate. The drugs generated $1.15
billion in sales last year, according to New York-based Pfizer’s
annual report. Pfizer describes Detrol and Detrol LA as the most
prescribed branded medicine worldwide for overactive bladder.

Mylan is the biggest U.S. maker of generic drugs, while
Sandoz is the world’s second-biggest generic-drug maker after
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.

A separate patent on the compound expires in 2012. U.S.
District Judge Dennis M. Cavanaugh in January upheld the
validity of that patent in a case against Teva.

The lawsuits are types commonly filed to clarify patent
rights while the FDA analyzes applications for generic versions
of medicines. The FDA can’t grant final approval for 30 months
unless a judge rules in favor of Mylan or Sandoz before then.

The case is Pfizer Inc. v. Mylan Inc., 10cv3246, U.S.
District Court for the District of New Jersey (Newark); and
Pfizer Inc. v. Sandoz Inc., 10cv3250, U.S. District Court for
the District of New Jersey (Newark).

For the latest new suits news, click here. For copies of recent
civil complaints, click here.

Lawsuits/Pretrial

Chimay Pleads Not Guilty to Grand Larceny, Forgery

New York money manager Guy de Chimay, who claims to be
related to royalty in Belgium, pleaded not guilty to grand
larceny and forgery charges after he was accused of stealing
millions in client funds.

Chimay, 47, chairman and chief investment officer of Chimay
Capital Management Inc., appeared in New York state Supreme
Court in Manhattan after being extradited from North Carolina,
where he was arrested June 11 on a New York warrant, according
to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.

“Chimay perpetrated a large-scale fraud on trusting
investors,” said Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance in a
statement. “His scheme involved all manner of deceit -- he lied
about who he was, how he was managing his clients’ finances, and
he even forged bank documents to back up his bogus story.”

Chimay was charged with grand larceny, attempted grand
larceny, forgery, criminal possession of a forged instrument and
a felony violation of general business law. If convicted of the
top count of grand larceny, he faces as much as 25 years in
prison.

He’s accused of running a Ponzi scheme that stole almost $7
million from several victims, according to the district
attorney’s office. Chimay used the money to pay credit card
bills, his summer rental home in the Hamptons section of Long
Island, his mortgage, car payments, a redeeming investor in his
hedge fund and other investors.

Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Aaron Wolfson asked
New York state Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro to order
Chimay to be held without bail, and Carro agreed.

“He denies any fraud,” Chimay’s attorney David Liebman
told the judge, asking him to set bail at about $400,000.

Carro scheduled the state case for Aug. 4. Lawyers for the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission served him with
subpoenas for a deposition and hearing on July 16th in the
Southern District of New York.

The SEC case is Securities and Exchange Commission v.
Chimay Capital Management Inc., 10-cv-04582, U.S. District
Court, Southern District of New York.

The criminal case is People v. Chimay, New York state
Supreme Court (Manhattan).

For more, click here.

For the latest lawsuits news, click here.

Trials/Appeals

Disney’s ABC Took Risk for ‘Millionaire,’ Lawyer Says

Walt Disney Co.’s ABC network took 100 percent of the risk
for putting “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” on U.S.
television, a lawyer for the company said at the end of a trial
over profits from the quiz show.

The U.K. creators of the show, who licensed the North
American rights to ABC in 1998 for a flat fee per episode plus a
share of the profits, knew they wouldn’t receive any profits
from the network run, Disney lawyer Martin Katz told jurors in
Riverside, California, during his closing argument on June 29.

“Coming off the network, it is going to be down 10
percent,” Katz said. “The most profitable show in the history
of television? That’s not true.”

Closely held Celador International Ltd. sued Disney six
years ago, claiming the company’s Buena Vista Television unit
and its ABC network “through a complex web of self-dealing
transactions” allowed ABC to keep the advertising revenue and
pay Buena Vista only a licensing fee equal to the cost of
producing the show so that Buena Vista never made a profit from
“Millionaire” that it would have had to share with Celador.

London-based Celador seeks more than $200 million in
damages from Disney. The jury started deliberating yesterday.

The case is Celador International Ltd. v. Walt Disney Co.
04-03541, U.S. District Court, Central District of California
(Riverside.)

For more, click here.

For the latest trial and appeals news, click here.

Verdicts/Settlements

Ex-SocGen Executive Mustier Fined for Insider Trading

Former Societe Generale SA investment banking chief Jean-
Pierre Mustier, who led the division where Jerome Kerviel
worked, was fined 100,000 euros ($122,900) by France for selling
shares of the bank before it announced losses tied subprime
mortgages.

Mustier has been under investigation since January 2008,
when the Autorite des Marches Financiers began reviewing insider
sales that preceded the Jan. 24, 2008, revelation of subprime
losses and the 4.9 billion-euro trading loss suffered after
unwinding bets placed by former trader Kerviel.

“The level of Mr. Jean-Pierre Mustier’s responsibilities
imposed on him” the requirement to know not to sell the shares
at that time, the AMF said in a statement on its website
yesterday.

Mustier, 49, testified at Kerviel’s trial earlier this
month, telling the court that he expected to be cleared by the
AMF. The executive quit his post in August after investigators
notified him they had recommended he face punishment for the
trades, doing so “in the interest of the group,” according to
a statement by the bank. There is no allegation the sales were
based on knowledge of Kerviel’s trades, of which Mustier said
during the trial he was entirely ignorant.

“Determined to defend his honor and to have his innocence
recognized, Mr. Jean-Pierre Mustier is going to file an appeal
against this decision,” his lawyer, Jean Veil, said in an e-
mailed statement, adding the enforcement committee member
handling the case recommended clearing Mustier.

Bank spokeswomen didn’t immediately respond to calls or e-
mails.

The AMF cleared Robert Day, founder of Los Angeles-based
TCW Group Inc. and a former member of Societe Generale’s board,
of any wrongdoing.

Day “is very pleased that the AMF Commission has followed
the recommendation of its staff and dismissed all charges
against him,” according to a statement e-mailed by Day’s
spokesman Josh Pekarsky. He “has maintained from the outset
that his share sales were appropriate.”

Mustier sold 6,000 shares in Societe Generale on Aug. 21,
2007, after the bank began an internal modeling system to
estimate losses related to the subprime market.

For more, click here.

ArcelorMittal, Voestalpine Fined by EU for Cartel

ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steelmaker, and
Voestalpine AG were among 17 producers fined a total of 518.5
million euros ($637 million) by the European Union for fixing
prices of a type of steel used in concrete.

The European Commission, the 27-nation EU’s antitrust
regulator, said the companies, including a unit of Russian
steelmaker OAO Severstal colluded on prices of prestressing
steel. Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal got the biggest fine of
276.5 million euros.

Voestalpine, Austria’s biggest steelmaker, was fined 22
million euros and Finland’s Rautaruukki Oyj was asked to pay 4.7
million euros. Italian company Redaelli Tecna SpA, a unit of
Severstal’s wire-making subsidiary Severstal Metiz since July
2008, was fined 6.3 million euros.

Natalia Ivanova, a spokeswoman for Severstal in Moscow,
said she couldn’t immediately comment.

Voestalpine said yesterday it will appeal the fine, adding
that it “has never been involved in the prestressing steel
cartel.”

Jean Lasar, a Luxembourg-based spokesman for ArcelorMittal,
said the company will “review the decision in detail and
respond within the time limits provided.”

Rautaruukki “will examine the grounds for the Commission
decision and evaluate any further action warranted,” the
company said in a statement yesterday. The fines concern a
former unit, it said.

For more, click here.

For the latest verdict and settlement news, click here.

Court News

Kagan Advocates Consensus, Refuses to Criticize Court

U.S. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan said justices should
seek greater consensus when possible, while refusing to
criticize the divided decisions reached by the court under Chief
Justice John Roberts.

“The court is served best and our country is served best
when people trust the court as an entirely nonpolitical body,”
Kagan said during a third day of hearings on her nomination
before the Senate Judiciary Committee. “One of the benefits of
narrow decisions is that they enable consensus to a greater
degree than broad, far-reaching decisions.”

Kagan, nominated last month by President Barack Obama, is
trying to counter Republican claims that she is too political as
she vies to become the third woman on the high court. She
wouldn’t let fellow Democrat and Rhode Island Senator Sheldon
Whitehouse draw her into condemning recent 5-4 decisions.

“I’m not agreeing to your characterization of the current
court,” Kagan, 50, said yesterday. “I’m sure that everybody up
there is acting in good faith.”

Kagan distanced herself from the analogy made by Roberts
during his 2005 confirmation hearing, when he likened judges to
baseball umpires who simply call balls and strikes. That analogy
is “correct in several important respects but like all
metaphors it does have its limits,” Kagan said.